


and he speaks rose-tongued, flowers in his throat

by eeveepkmnfan



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: (eventually) - Freeform, Absolute Disaster Bi Claude, Character Study, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Golden Deer Route, Fluff, Golden Deer Linhardt, M/M, Mentioned Golden Deer Students (Fire Emblem)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-03
Updated: 2020-03-11
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:27:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22995427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eeveepkmnfan/pseuds/eeveepkmnfan
Summary: Claude doesn't know Linhardt - but.But he will.
Relationships: Linhardt von Hevring/Claude von Riegan
Comments: 10
Kudos: 73





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [featherx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/featherx/gifts).



Claude first sees Linhardt as a figure backed by black, sitting by the fishing pond, so still as to barely be breathing, as calm as the water he sat looking out upon. He doesn’t approach. While there’s value in getting to know as many people as he can, the school year hasn’t even started yet - there’s plenty of time left to gather information. So he turns and resumes his exploration of the monastery, smiling and greeting everyone he sees because it always pays to be seen as a cheerful sort of fool.

(No one ever seems to see the knife caught in his teeth.)

Claude puts a hand to his braid, twirls it around his finger as he remembers his promise to his parents. Taps a nail against the bead woven through it just to hear the familiar tak tak tak. If he closes his eyes, he can pretend it’s just his mother’s hair clacking and clicking together as she leans over him to wake him from dreams he hasn’t yet realized. 

When his mother dances, the beads braided through her long and waving hair make no sound - one day, that will be him. 

But for now, he puts to use what she taught him and imagines that he’s just dancing as he quickly learns the names and territories to go along with them (along with checking in with the staff: how are they liking it here? What brought them to the monastery? All easy questions that mask his intentions of making sure they’re being treated well) even if it takes him more time to remember them. His tongue is quick and he made sure to rip the accent from his speech viciously and with prejudice, like pruning weeds. 

Fodlan has such strange names. It’s odd to think that this was the world his mother named him for. That she came from. He can’t see it.

Or maybe he doesn’t want to. Because if he came here hoping to be proven wrong, he should have expected to be disappointed. The nobles are what he expected. But even the commoners and some of the servants look at him like he’s something wrong. They all say, “You’re so weird, Claude!” and laugh, as if it’s funny. He smiles and laughs along because isn’t it? 

He’s as much an outsider here as he ever was back home. 

But Claude is practical enough to work with what he’s been given, and so he slowly builds on his base of information, bowing with his head down because if he were to look up at the noble he was addressing his eyes would be much too sharp, his grin too wild. His father may have been a great warrior, but it was always his mother he would prefer to emulate. So he takes and takes and takes as much as anyone in the monastery will let him, and he puts on a good show of giving something back. 

But always, always, when he walks the halls or sits down to dine with the companion of the week, his fingers are quick as they dance along his daggers, ready for anything. 

(He never touches food or drink before using all of his tricks for spotting poison.)

He soon gets a reputation of being friendly but a habitual schemer, which suits him just fine. Like a new bow, he can’t be too firm or too flimsy - he must be somewhere in the middle between approachable and irreverent… it’s safer that way. It’s the performance of his life, and just like he’s dancing, he practices his footwork until it’s all but second nature. Smile here, nod here, laugh there, be playful - he was an actor in another life, probably.

But he thinks if he had to be born to this one, at least he can make his mother proud.

* * *

It isn’t until after Teach arrives to save the day and chooses to lead the Golden Deer (clearly the best choice) that he meets a boy in the library who introduces himself as Linhardt with drowsy eyes and a voice that makes Claude want to laugh it’s so uninterested. But he might as well be polite, and so he simply flashes a grin, which apparently only merits a blink and then Linhardt is turning his head, and that’s when he spots the white ribbon.

It reminds him of the common strain of flowers that are native to his homeland - the pink they call Little Daggers, while the white is simply Hexbane: commonly used to brew potent poisons, occasionally the poison will have qualities that apparently act the same as a Silence spell. (Of course, since it’s Almyra, it’s not unusual to see women or men wearing poisonous flowers’s petals, whether warrior or not. In Almyra, the more beautiful something is, the faster it can kill you.)

But that’s neither nor there, really, and so sneaks a quick look towards the book the boy is reading, and he can feel a spark forming in his brain as he sees the title - it’s material on Crests and the history of them throughout Fodlan. He has to read it. And if he can somehow make a good impression on this boy, maybe he’ll be able to point him towards even more interesting books.

“I’m not giving you this,” the green haired boy sighs, shoulders slumping as he just plops down onto the floor in front of Claude with no concern for propriety or manners. Claude grins, thrilled to have such an intriguing challenge put forth (he could care less for challenges of brute strength - give him the cloak and dagger hidden under a person’s face instead. he had practice in disarming opponents). 

“Oh,” he almost purred, smile cheerful and light as he sat down beside Linhardt. “Are you sure? There’s nothing you can think of that you would want? What a shame. And here I was going to offer you a favor simply to lend me the book - I’d give it right back after I was done, promise.” He tilted his head innocently and was met with a yawn and the book being clutched tighter. Cute. 

Then, Linhardt fixed him with a stare and said, “Fine. Be quiet and watch for people while I nap. If anyone comes over here, don’t wake me.” 

Claude blinked. “What, that’s all it took?” This boy was easier than he’d been expecting, for some reason.

Linhardt groaned softly as he began lying down, laying his head down onto his arms. “You’d just keep pestering me until I said yes anyway.” 

What? Claude frowned and opened his mouth to say… something (even he didn’t know what would have come out of his mouth at that moment) but Linhardt invited no questions as he curled up to sleep. It wasn’t long before he was very softly snoring, the sounds like little wyvern purrs as they faded into the background. (Wyverns were ridiculous creatures.)

Claude sighed and leaned against a bookshelf as he looked out over the library. Just the two of them so far. 

This wasn’t at all what he’d imagined he’d be doing on a weekend’s evening, but. Anything could be made into an opportunity - he ran his eyes over the form of his newest acquaintance and pursed his lips.

He simply had to make one.


	2. Chapter 2

The two of them quickly come to a deal: Claude will herd off any unsuspecting students who would otherwise wake Linhardt, while his new companion gets to sleep a tad more (and lends him whatever books strike his fancy).

Of course, that's not all he's getting out of that deal - Linhardt may not be one for much conversation normally, but get him started on Crests and he'll just fill a room up with his words. Sometimes the other boy will even let slip little juicy pieces of what should be common knowledge for those from Fodlan. (Claude laughs and nods and lists them out in his head one by one, and later he'll make use of them in other, more important conversations.)

If you have the language, you already have everything you need - even if he'll never truly fit in.

It's been a month since he extended his hand and the two of them exchanged services. Linhardt is a boy who doesn't even pretend to put on airs or even the most basic of courtesies - he'd much rather pay attention to his books than people, and Claude kind of envies him that. 

What would it feel like to be so unbothered by the weapons concealed in humanity’s skull? Maybe it would be easier.

But then he remembers the fundamental difference between him and everyone else: he has dreams full of dreams full of dreams, and no one else has a claim to them. They are perhaps the only thing in his life that is wholly his, and he'll bite and kick and cheat his way to realizing them if only because there's a selfish part of him that wants to prove something.

He wants that little boy who grew up angry and sad and afraid to finally be happy.

(It's selfish to think of his own desires before those of the people he's trying to protect, isn't it?)

“Would you like to join me at tonight’s dinner?” Linhardt suddenly asks, and it is an arrow to his heart; suspicions and paranoia clamber around and alongside the shaft as it rattles inside him. It is the quick and damning bite of the cold when it thinks to choke him body first -

“Why?” He asks, smiling and cocking his head. What would you get out of this?

Linhardt turns to regard him with a face that he can’t read, and for a few seconds he wonders if this is how bleeding out feels. Then, he tilts his head, green strands following him and says:

“Hmm, I don’t really know. I suppose if I have to answer… then because you’re quieter than everyone else? Though I do hope that your well of silence won’t suddenly dry up just because we’ll be among our classmates?” He phrases it like a question, but it doesn’t even matter, because he returns back to his book as if he already has an answer.

Claude bows theatrically, hiding his grimace. “Why, I’d be honored, Linhardt! A chance to get to know you better, after all this time spent together? Color me intrigued!” Of course, his voice hides what he can’t help but feel.

Linhardt hums noncommittally, then turns a page. Then another, and another, before pausing briefly and shooting him a look that features a raised eyebrow. Hard to tell if that’s supposed to be disapproval or disinterest yet.

“There’s no need to bow,” and with that, he returns to someone else’s words, and Claude is left behind feeling cheated, somehow. Has he already lost something?

There is an eerie feeling of being a step and a half behind someone’s silhouette, and faintly Claude ponders the idea of Fodlan’s gentle spirits and how they might come to form. He wouldn’t be at all surprised to be haunted - but not by any ghost of Fodlan. No, his fate is for that oft ridiculed Other space that exists, far out of reach from a warrior’s glorious endless reincarnation or a more mundane First Death.

No, there is no god, no peaceful Fodlan afterlife waiting for him - but he takes comfort in the fact that when he does die, there will be nothing.

* * *

Claude feels the unmistakable sensation of eyes coldly tracking his every movement as he and Linhardt grab the special of the day (some sort of bland, smoked meat) and after the server sneaks an extra sweet bun to his green haired companion, Claude tugs at his sleeve and cocks his head towards the doors. “I don’t know about you, but I’m having a sudden craving for some sunshine!” 

Linhardt follows him without a word, and as he passes through the door, he spies Hilda gesturing for him to come over to the Golden Deer’s table, but he simply shoots her a wink and promises himself to make it up to her later. She pouts, but it’s Edelgard’s unnerving regard that forces him to flee lest he abandon all of his careful caution and instead pin the dagger to the vein; she is predictable, at the very least, in her methods.

He is glad when, after settling at the base of a tree overlooking the path that leads to the kitchen (the better to have your back to a wall, the better to watch every move your enemy makes) Linhardt simply sprawls lazily and lets him eat in silence. Talking comes naturally (like swaying silks against his skin as he spins and spins and is content for once) and he’s good at it, but sometimes it’s nice to want the opposite.

Most of the Fodlan cuisine he’s sampled hasn’t exactly been to his tastes, but he eats everything off of his plate anyway, because he hates the thought of wasting food. Linhardt eats with all the grace of a bird but none of the speed or sharp, shallow movements. He picks and nibbles and pushes around his food, until finally he sets it aside and turns to his sweet buns, eyes lighting up.

It’s the first time he’s seen Linhardt smiling, he realizes, and abruptly looks away, ignoring the sudden ache that sets his blood to quicken. It is an ugly somewhere between jealousy and something that’s opposed, a thing much lighter and prettier to hold - but he smothers his emotions with all the deftness he can bear before he becomes someone he doesn’t want to be.

It’s probably just a bad day, but Claude decides that later, he will practice and practice until his muscles _shake_. He will do what it takes until his mind is clear and thoughts focused.

“So you like sweet things?” He asks, even though he already knows the answer. His companion turns to him with a slight, relaxed smile and eyes that appear more awake than the usual.

Green bangs dip into a nod, and Linhardt breathes out a content sigh. “Of course. Small sweets like this are the best to eat between naps.” A few seconds hang and then fall. “Though I imagine you probably… like spicy things.”

Claude puts his arms behind his neck and closes his eyes into a smile. “Wow! How’d you figure that one out?”

“You didn’t like today’s special. It was a bit too spicy for my tastes… and I’ve seen you reading those foreign cookbooks.”

He leans over the stock still boy and huffs in faux exasperation, hands on his hips. “And what if I hate spicy things too?”

Linhardt opens his eyes to shoot him a look that conveys his sheer disappointment. Claude is impressed. “I’ve heard you argue about the merits of ‘adult tastes’ to Lysithea multiple times. Trying to convince her to eat anything other than sweets seems a waste.”

“Oh?” He questions, genuinely curious (a fatal flaw). 

A yawn punctures Linhardt’s next words, but he continues on, unhurried. “A waste of time.” Ah. He should have expected that, shouldn’t he?

He can’t help but snicker, and he leans against the back of the tree as he slowly starts to slide down to sit. He notices a smile peeking out from an honest boy’s lips, like a secret that was always meant for him and him alone - and it is a thought that only encourages interest where it should not.

They are left to themselves, beside each other, and as Linhardt slowly (slowly) finishes off his meal and minutes and moments pass by, leaves drift down from the tree they harbor in and from trees neighboring - and one meanders its way down a winding path that eventually ends in Linhardt’s hair. Claude’s fingers itch to sweep it away, but he is frozen inside a sandshpere-spun (they call it glass here) sword - but all of the edges have been smoothed down and so he is left to naught but that which is the make of light: shining and glinting and spinning a web of its own, the evening sun is a power unto itself as it touches skin to skin with Linhardt. 

The shadows it makes in blue eyes is something that deserves to be remembered. 

So he doesn’t reach for a single stray leaf, but a boy with a clear mind turns to him and holds out a sweet bun, and for a moment he can’t understand if it’s a kindness or a deed even worse. 

“Do you like sweets?” Linhardt asks, and so he takes it with a muttered thanks and bites into warm, soft dough that hides surprisingly good filling, and he says yes. I do.

Blue eyes turn to watch the clouds and the way the sky mixes color after color into itself just to say ‘you’re home’. He hopes she has a different view - one that tells her ‘he’s doing fine’. If stars could lead you, then why couldn’t the sky talk in her voice?

“I’m glad,” Linhardt says, after a while, so long that Claude almost forgets. And then he drifts off to sleep and for the first time in a long time, he wonders what someone else dreams of. He wonders and he comes to a conclusion:

When next he gets the chance, a liar will invite that nice, honest boy to tea. Claude doesn’t understand Linhardt.

Not yet.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OR: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF DISASTER BI CLAUDE, PART ONE

Claude invites Linhardt to tea, but the other boy declines - is, in fact, more interested in his books and Crests and research than the heir to House Riegan. If it wasn't so inconvenient for him, he'd laugh.

But it's always that same answer, week after week. No matter how much he winds his way through different words, different offers. Clearly, the lords of the Alliance have nothing on a boy who is decades their junior. 

He'd give a lot to see the look on their faces when matched against Linhardt's poor manners and unconcerned air. 

It isn't a loss, not yet, but Claude knows the value in retreat; he decides to focus instead on all the other mysteries that have firmly caught his attention (like the glint of a dagger in summer sun):

Who is Teach, really, and how best can he make use of their power? What is Rhea's motive in all of this? (Who ordered the attack on three future rulers? What were they hoping to gain, taking out all three of them at once? Or perhaps…) 

The best way to go about taking that first step forward in solving them, of course, is to first wait and listen: it wouldn't do to make a move first. He needs to gather as much info as he can, and what could possibly be better than hearing it from the people who will one day either be opposing or supporting him? He makes use of his time as best he can and starts with the Golden Deer - he doesn’t expect much from his classmates, but he figures there’s no harm in trying.

Lysithea nearly bites his head off when he ends up teasing her, but he can’t help it. She’s like a princess from one of his mother’s stories - ones where the queens are fierce warriors who fight wars in the name of love and friendship and family. When he was younger, he was starry eyed over every description of free flowing hair (because only the truly skilled can afford to leave it down) and clever strategies. Now he wonders if they were merely something she found when she came to Almyra; is it safer for her, that way?

Is it better to push down all of where you came from, a part of who you are? Of course not. But sometimes you have to - faced with some people, you need to. It isn’t fair. 

It’s never fair. But one day he and his mother won’t have to be afraid of speaking a language almost left down at the border to rot and rust. (They won’t need to fear a home that’s never been, that could have been.)

Almyra and her people may not have wanted him, but Claude still hasn’t given up on them. Lorenz sneers at him, scrunches his nose, scowls whenever he enters a room - and when they first met, Claude wondered if it was because he knew. But that wasn’t it, really.

(“To be blunt… it would have been better had you never shown your face here.” And Claude couldn’t help himself from having the last word. He felt like smiling but his face wouldn’t move. 

“Then why don’t you leave me to die out on the battlefield, if you’re so eager to be rid of me? Oh, but I wouldn’t want you to dirty your hands over the likes of me!” He didn’t know how his voice came out so even. But Lorenz whirled around, shock and insult painting over his eyes, over his face, his mouth agape, and he couldn’t stop himself from smiling.

When the Gloucester boy spoke, his voice was quietly furious, something he didn’t think was possible. “Do you ever think to spare a whit of care for where your words may land? You may be a dissolute lout, but that’s no excuse for the spirit those words were meant in!”

“And what spirit were they meant in, then?” He mockingly spread his hands in between the two of them, watching as Lorenz clenched his fists tightly. 

“One that does a great disservice to me. And to you.” And for a moment, he had no words left to offer. Then, he laughed. 

Lorenz shot him a look of disgust before marching away, head held high, but all he could think of was that that boy couldn’t be reasoned with. Maybe that was true for the both of them. Either way, if Teach decided to keep assigning them both to sky patrol, he wouldn’t be responsible for how it turned out.)

Out of everyone in the Golden Deer, more than anyone, he thinks that Lorenz is the most confusing. Or, well, the person who likes to confuse him the most, is a better way of putting it. Just when he thinks he’s got him all figured out… there’s more to him than he first thought, and maybe sometimes he’s almost amused by the hints of a certain sly humor, but he can’t foresee the two of them becoming friends anytime soon.

He’s fully prepared to be enemies, in the future. It’s almost a shame, because he bets that Lorenz knows a lot more about the state of the Alliance and its politics and every other little minor detail, probably more than he does. An advantage of having been born directly into that sort of environment. 

He doesn’t think he’s ever met someone who genuinely amuses him and then turns around and makes him want to _win_. (He knows those eyes; they come right before the punch. Why should it matter if he wants to throw first?)

Leonie and Rapheal he likes from the start. Commoners, unlike Lysithea or Lorenz, but what they lack in noble disposition and connections they more than make up for in personality and hard work. He sees the two of them training together every single day he goes walking, and they inevitably pester him into joining them, which actually isn’t so bad. Sure, Rapheal is strong enough to make his arms sore from blocking, and Leonie is dexterous enough to make him wish he was fighting with a bow rather than an axe, but he makes do. He always does.

(They wrap an arm around his shoulder when they’re done, invite him to the dining hall for a bite to eat - he wants to ask them why. What’s in it for you? But he follows.)

Marianne and Ignatz are two flowers bending under the strain of the sun; they greet him in hallways, say good morning softly in class, but they always avert their eyes away from him as if they can tell that he doesn’t belong. So he makes a point in sitting next to them in class every other morning, just to see what they’ll do - Marianne only keeps her head down, but once… Ignatz came to sit in between the two of them, nervous and biting his lip but bold when he met Claude’s stare. 

After that, he backs off. He doesn’t want to make anyone uncomfortable, and maybe they realize he’s sincere when he apologizes and then offers to talk to Teach about not pairing him up with either of them for that weekend’s chores. “It’s no excuse, but my curiosity gets the better of me sometimes. Don’t worry, you two won’t have to see me out of class if you don’t want to.”

But then Marianne giggled, a noise that took a moment for him to catch, and Ignatz smiled at her, and then at him. “Apology accepted. Did you only want to get to know us?” When he sheepishly admits that yes, that was the plan, all three of them end up laughing, and he can only feel a burning sensation of relief and guilt.

His father says that he is too soft, much too soft to be a prince, and maybe it’s true. But he’d rather feel this guilt than a self righteous belief that he was in the right that he’s only ever seen possessed by royalty or organized religion. 

Diplomacy over war; it’s a matter of personal opinions that they’ve argued many times before. And no one has ever said it to his face, but he knows they think that it is his mother’s blood that is the fault of him - they think she is the reason he would prefer books than to sword fighting when he was a child, and it’s ridiculous. 

How can you judge someone for things entirely out of their control, that aren’t even true? And he knows that his mother loves his father, and that they love him, but sometimes he wonders if that love hasn’t eroded away from all the hatred over the years. Before each other, they have a duty to Almyra, and their people are just as prejudiced as the ones of Fodlan. 

He doesn't love Almyra for the people. He loves it because his family does, because he still stays up thinking and wondering over a place where he can be accepted for who he is, not in spite of it.

And then there’s Hilda. He didn’t know what to make of her when they first met (when Grandfather introduced them) but by now he can confidently say that she is a wonderful, disastrous hurricane of a girl and he wouldn’t have her any other way. She hates to be made to work or to battle or any talk of politics. She loves to gossip and whisper secrets over tea. She can’t stand not knowing about absolutely everything that’s happening at any given time, and in that regard, they get along well. 

She’s the type of person to knock on his door at three in the morning only to ask him if he wants to watch her paint her nails, no matter how red his eyes are or how shaky his voice can get. 

She makes a note of his favorites or even slight preferences. (She cons him into eating with her, and whenever she does, she always asks if he likes it.) Whenever she gets a weekly letter from her family, she passes along a bundle of tea leaves and refuses to take no for an answer.

“My brother sent me too much of this blend by mistake! I suppose you’ll just have to accept them, Claude.”

“Holst doesn’t even drink tea!”

And she’d smile at him, innocent. “He does when I ask him.” 

She’s stubborn and kind and for the first time in forever, he feels like he has a friend. He turns back into that lonely little boy who never quite grew up when it comes to her; he wonders if his heart will be able to handle whatever it is that she plans on using him for. For once, he can’t bring himself to care, not when it’s her.

There’s something so bright and vivid about her - it can’t be written down in words or put to right in poetry. It can’t be heard or seen or felt; no. Hilda is an experience, and he doesn’t know where it’s heading, just that it is. It keeps going, she keeps taking his hand in hers and leading him to places warm and inviting - he never wants to let go. 

She smiles at him and he smiles back and he wonders softly if this is love. He wants to introduce her to Almyra and his parents and Nader and share stories of when he was young, the good and the bad. He wants to tease her about the culture shock he knows she’d have. He wants to be able to laugh at the way her tongue would trip on his father’s language, so familiar and known to him. 

Then she’ll mention Almyra offhandedly, just a tiny little detail but she says it like it’s something she’s stolen; it feels so wrong and makes him feel so wrong, and then he thinks that she’d never want to come with him.

She’s gone her whole life on the other side of the border, so he doesn't let himself drink any sort of hope from the wine that diluted dreams make. His mother fell in love with an Almyran king and was proud of it; now, their son can’t help but be proud and ashamed of the very thing he swore he’d never let go of. 

Instead of pink painted fingers reaching out to grasp his, he instead wakes reeling from nightmares where she plucks him roots and all, just to make from him a poison she can be proud of showing off to her family; a Claude who is nothing of who he is. 

Hilda sighs over how romantic it was for his mother to have thrown everything away, just to be with his father. A part of him wonders how much he’s prepared to throw away for her.

Even if he’s wary of what those hands of hers could do to him (how she could hurt him), he still wouldn’t mind letting her hold him here in place. If it was her. If it could be her.

But Claude wasn’t built for shedding antlers; he takes all the pieces he leaves behind in hand and he doesn’t look back. He tries not to. 

Nader says that if he goes around with such sharp eyes, then eventually he’ll have to cut himself - he supposes he finally knows the feeling.

He can only blame himself; he was raised to love the people that could kill him, you see. And if this is love, it’s a love that he’s determined to put to use. (He wishes he could just hold it in his hands.)

So when he sees her stare at Marianne, and smile to herself, not even realizing, he thinks to himself that this is a perfect opportunity: and if his smile is a bit worn when he encourages her to go talk to the other girl, well. That’s just a paperweight for a letter he never got to send.

Hilda is so enamored already, just with sitting next to Marianne and hearing her softly laugh; Claude lays his head in his palm and smiles and he’s glad. He’s glad to see that Marianne’s been talking a bit more, lately. 

He’s only eighteen. He can pass this off as a crush. But truth be told, if Hilda had out of the blue decided to propose to him, to ask him to marry her… if she’d asked him?

He would have said yes. Yes. 

It’s only fair to talk about Teach as well. So. When he first met them, they’d been almost emotionless. They still are. They’re suspicious and unnerving and powerful, and he enjoys their teaching style even if they keep fumbling over it. Even when they make a mistake, they keep going, keep learning alongside them. 

And that, more than anything, is what makes them dangerous. There’s not much else to be said about them as a person, really. If Marianne is a question mark, then it’s nothing compared to the blank slate that Teach appears to be. 

But as a teacher, as a professor, he kind of likes them. It’s just everything else about Teach that he dislikes.

Their class has a mission taking them to Zanado at the end of the month. To ‘get rid’ of some bandits. And yet, all that occupies his thoughts besides the secrets of the church and his new professor are ways to invite Linhardt to tea. If only they shared a class, it wouldn’t be nearly as hard, but besides the times that they meet in the library or random times he’ll find the other boy at the fishing pond or sleeping somewhere, Linhardt is usually shut up inside of his room. Researching or sleeping, it doesn't really matter. It’s a problem, either way.

And of course, Linhardt isn’t any help whatsoever. He’ll just be waved off or get a vague hum in response, but sometimes it’s simply a no. He can tell that by continuing to repeat his request, Linhardt is getting steadily more annoyed, and he wonders if he could wear him down like that? But that strategy leaves something of a bad taste in his mouth. Besides, he actually wants Linhardt in a good mood if he accepts the invitation. 

One night, as the day of the mission creeps ever closer, he and Linhardt are in the library, silently perusing their respective books. He’d actually been interested in reading about the various agricultural landscapes of Fodlan, so when Linhardt lightly coughed beside him, it took a few seconds for him to lift his head. 

Green met blue, and for some reason, Linhardt looked even more tired this evening. “Did you want to ask me something?” 

Linhardt opened his mouth, and then sighed, as if he’d had to stop himself. He soon continued, however. “Have you ever killed someone?” His eyes were intent on Claude’s, and for a reason he couldn’t explain, the air in the library felt as if it had fled.

Or perhaps his lungs had mistaken his heart for his head.

“Yes,” he said into the silence of the monastery’s empty library. At such a late hour, they were the only ones here. The moon shone behind the windows, like a flash of magic just waiting for you to make a misstep.

“Why?” 

Claude looked down at his hands. He closed his book and left it on the floor. “Because they were trying to kill me.”

A hush wrapped him in gossamer wings, edged with down. Linhardt’s hands bit into his own skin as he looked away. “I don’t see why we should have to kill at all.” And the words were bitter and laced in frustration for all that they weren’t directed at Claude; it felt like they were for Linhardt instead.

Like he’d spent a lifetime whispering them only to be confused when nobody else could hear them.

“I don’t either,” he breathed out, and felt something close to regret hook itself to his heart. He couldn’t be sorry for being alive. But he wishes that his first kill could have been a choice instead of his survival. 

Diplomacy over war; either way, you always lost something. The key was knowing what you could afford to give away.

And there in that fragile moment, he looked back at Linhardt and wondered what he’d had to give up. Or maybe he was afraid to.

“Why do you keep talking to me?” He asks, face blank. And he was probably a little too honest, because sharp blue eyes glinted in the darkness, candles casting light over his face in patterns Claude couldn’t help but trace.

One corner of Linhardt’s mouth curled upwards. As did an eyebrow. “Why do _you_ keep talking to me?” 

Claude grinned. “I’m just curious, you know? I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you’re kind of fascinating, Linhardt.” 

A laugh rings out over all the books, over Claude’s head, and for a moment, he wants to try to catch it. Linhardt leans in closer as if he’s going to whisper him a secret, and he leans in too before he realizes his body even moved.

A head of green hair tilts, and he can see that white ribbon that’s halfway undone, long hair messy and disheveled as it comes free, almost a waterfall. “Me? Is that a line or are you being genuine?”

Claude winks, watching those eyes look back at him with an almost playful amusement. “Hey, I’m not Slyvain! My lines actually work.”

Linhardt smirks. “Oh? So you’ve had the experience of hearing them?” 

Claude splutters, but he’s grinning as he waves his hands in dismissal. “Okay, okay, you’ve got me. He hit on me once.” He points a finger at the other boy as he starts to open his mouth. “Once!”

With a gentle huff, Linhardt bats away his finger and simply smiles. “I’m sure it’s a relief to the unsuspecting students of the monastery that you don’t take after him.”

“Are you calling me a flirt, Linhardt? Better watch that tongue of yours.” 

Linhardt rolls his eyes and Claude has to bite back a laugh. “Why? Or you’ll have to ‘remind me’?” And he actually uses air quotes. “Besides, I thought it was you who’s been watching my tongue, lately.” He doesn’t even sound affected by his own words. Like he’s remarking on the weather. ‘Oh, it’ll rain later today, judging by those clouds.’ What?

“What?” He blurts out, struck dumb. Linhardt stares at him and then down at his book of advanced white magic as if to ask why the people he surrounds himself with are this dumb.

“Hmm, come to think of it…” a hand comes up to his chin as he thinks. “Is this why you’ve been trying to invite me to tea? A bit old fashioned, don’t you think?” Blue eyes look at him and through him and Claude kind of wants to scream. He definitely wants to bury himself in his room in the dorm and never come back out. It’d be easy to fake some sort of illness using any number of his poisons.

“No. Linhardt, I-!” He exclaims, except as soon as he’s said it, he wishes he’d just kept his mouth shut. 

“I truly didn’t think you to be so devious as all of this, Claude.” And the worst part is, Linhardt actually sounds impressed. He wants to strangle him.

He takes a good long look at his embarrassment and his heart, that’s so flustered it can’t even muster a steady beat, the poor thing. He feels off balance himself. But what’s life without a few surprises? If Linhardt wants to make this into a date so badly…

He tilts his head and asks. “Would you go on a date with me then, Linhardt?’

And Linhardt immediately says, “No.” In the following silence that stretches, Claude wonders if it’s possible to feel so amused and so infuriated at the same time.

“Why not?” He exhales, patience just about exhausted for one night. 

Linhardt slowly stands up, yawning as he bends down to offer a hand. Wanting to grimace but ending up smiling instead could be described as a character trait of his; it comes into full affect as he comes to stand in front of his current puzzle. 

And then Linhardt smiles as he says, completely serious, “You’re cute like this.”

?????

And then he walks away. He walks away, like that, without even explaining… anything?

Claude seethes to himself as he closes his door behind himself and flops down onto his bed. He runs a hand through his hair and laughs as he grins. Linhardt is absolutely infuriating and impossible and he’s only now getting the feeling that’s a bit in over his head with all of this.

It doesn’t matter. He feels a giddy warmth travel up his spine as he realizes exactly what he’s going to do:

If Linhardt won’t come to him, he’ll just have to go to Linhardt. 

He’s sure Professor Manuela could always use a bit of help with her class’s mission this month, after all. He’s not planning on transferring (they probably wouldn’t even allow him), but…

He’s curious about the rest of the Black Eagles too. If he can gather more information about Edelgard in the process? Well, all the better.

He’s in enemy territory no matter what, but for once, he feels… excited. 

He doubts anyone will see this coming, let alone Linhardt.


End file.
